Sound Oil withdraws takover offer for Antrim

Sound Oil has retracted its proposed takeover offer for Antrim Energy.

The company in November announced its intention to launch a public offer for 100% of the share capital of the Antrim Energy, a Canadian-based international oil and gas exploration and production company with assets offshore in the UK North Sea and Ireland.

Explaining the reason behind its decision the company said in a statement: “Sound Oil confirms that following the continued deterioration of the oil price and the resultant reduction in global appetite for deep water exploration, the Company has decided, having re-evaluated Antrim’s assets, not to proceed further with an offer for Antrim at this time.”

To remind, Antrim, whose main asset is the Skellig Block, offshore Ireland, in December said the intended offer received from Sound Oil to acquire the company was not in the best interests of Antrim shareholders.

The intended offer for Antrim was to offer for each Antrim share, 0.3198 new Sound Oil ordinary shares. The offer would value each Antrim share at 3.44p (based on the closing market price of 10.75p per Sound Oil share on 21 November 2014 on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange, the last business day preceding this announcement. This values the entire issued share capital of Antrim at approximately £6.35M.

Offshore Energy Today staff